Why Do Women Feel the Need to Justify Each Action?

The other day I read a quote: “Women do not have to sacrifice their careers because of their children but because of their spouses.” It kind of stuck with me. And led to thinking, soul-searching, analyzing and finally, penning down this blog.

Somewhere, it seemed true.

Then the movie ‘Ka& Ki’ released. Despiteits flaws, the film conveyed a revolutionary message to my mind. The role of the woman and the man are refreshingly reversed. Right at the start, you’re told through a convoluted monologue that Kia doesn’t want to be a man’s “support system”. The role reversal in the movie conveyed a deeper meaning that most women aspire for.

Indeed, we talk about the woman on a guilt-trip when she is unable to do justice to both home and work. We never talk about a man’s guilt-trip in juggling the two because there’s none.
As a society, it is given that if a man is staying back at work it’s fine but if a woman has to do the same she justifies it a, to herself, b, to her husband, c, to her in-laws and d, to the entire world.

Ask a working mum how many times in an hour she justifies her act of working to herself, especially if it’s exam days for the children. It’s so ingrained in a woman’s DNA and the world around her to justify her acts that, somewhere as a woman, she has forgotten to live for herself. And even if she tries once in a while to live for herself, she is labelled as ‘selfish’, not a good wife, good mother, good bahu and so on and so forth.

A few days ago, Chanda Kochhar, managing director and chief executive officer of ICICI Bank, wrote a heart-warming letter to her daughter. An emotional letter from a working mum to her daughter, which took social media by storm, it justifies her success and her family-duties. Justification seems tobe a woman’s second name. Always justifying her moves whether to herself orher family.

So dear you, all I’d say stop justifying your acts to the world. It’s time you start living for yourself and stop bothering about what the world says because – “ kuch too log kahengye, logon kakaamhaikhena” (people will keep talking about you, that’s what best they do)